Suicide

[goinghome]

Finally I finished Len Brown’s ‘Meetings with Morrissey’, though the last chapter about the Oscar Wilde parallels, while fascinating and convincing, reminded me a little of the Diana Morrissey mystery. The appendix listing a host of thespian characters who influenced lyrics contained a disproportionate number of those who were reckless, doomed or committed suicide.

Which accidentally seemed to segue nicely into the book I’m now reading, written by Gary Lachman, founder member of the band Blondie. It’s called ‘The Dedalus Book of Literary Suicides – Dead Letters’. Much research has been conducted and condensed in the effort and the approach is in er, dead earnest. Nevertheless, I’m finding some of the facts about the myriad writers included in it hilarious. A historian Jacques Barzun summarises nihilists: “The genuine kind believe in nothing and do nothing about it”. An obscure philosopher, Mainlander from Offenbach, developed a theory that God was so bored with eternity he committed suicide through making this world of time, space and matter and that the highest aim of all beings is really non-existence. In his 30’s Mainlander's opus ‘The Philosophy of Redemption’ was published with the help of his sister, and the day after he committed suicide by stepping off a stack of review copies of his own books…

Lachman is a grounded chap and chips away at his vast mass of raw material with a realistic sense of proportion, creating an exploration full of historical, cultural and closer insights.

 

[MORRIZSEY]

Finally I finished Len Brown’s ‘Meetings with Morrissey’, though the last chapter about the Oscar Wilde parallels, while fascinating and convincing, reminded me a little of the Diana Morrissey mystery. The appendix listing a host of thespian characters who influenced lyrics contained a disproportionate number of those who were reckless, doomed or committed suicide.

Which accidentally seemed to segue nicely into the book I’m now reading, written by Gary Lachman, founder member of the band Blondie. It’s called ‘The Dedalus Book of Literary Suicides – Dead Letters’. Much research has been conducted and condensed in the effort and the approach is in er, dead earnest. Nevertheless, I’m finding some of the facts about the myriad writers included in it hilarious. A historian Jacques Barzun summarises nihilists: “The genuine kind believe in nothing and do nothing about it”. An obscure philosopher, Mainlander from Offenbach, developed a theory that God was so bored with eternity he committed suicide through making this world of time, space and matter and that the highest aim of all beings is really non-existence. In his 30’s Mainlander's opus ‘The Philosophy of Redemption’ was published with the help of his sister, and the day after he committed suicide by stepping off a stack of review copies of his own books…

Lachman is a grounded chap and chips away at his vast mass of raw material with a realistic sense of proportion, creating an exploration full of historical, cultural and closer insights.

"The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless"
Leo Tolstoy

 

[Hellie]

OMFG...sounds like some deep shit off of Newsnight Review.

 

[Kewpie]

hmmmm

OMFG...sounds like some deep shit off of Newsnight Review.

Thanks for your intelligent comment.

 

[MORRIZSEY]

“The genuine kind believe in nothing and do nothing about it”.

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’

Edmund Burke

 

[Jukebox Jury]

Re: hmmmm

Thanks for your intelligent comment.

And thank you for yours

Jukebox Jury

 

[MORRIZSEY]

"And do not hold prejudice, without their choice, as that is the glory of the weak"

 

[goinghome]

Don't fight, guys n' gals! To be or not to be, that is the question, and it crosses everyone's mind, some more than others, and is very painful at times in certain cases. Sorry if I was a bit flippant in my introduction, I've driven over a thousand miles in the last few days and my mood might be unusual.

A more sober summary of the book is here with various reviews - http://www.dedalusbooks.com/catalog.php?id=00000193&s=1

 

[MORRIZSEY]

Don't fight, guys n' gals! To be or not to be, that is the question, and it crosses everyone's mind, some more than others, and is very painful at times in certain cases. Sorry if I was a bit flippant in my introduction, I've driven over a thousand miles in the last few days and my mood might be unusual.

A more sober summary of the book is here with various reviews - http://www.dedalusbooks.com/catalog.php?id=00000193&s=1

Don't worry friend. You've posted one of the best subjects on here. I'm sure it will run. Ignore the low-lifes....

 

[Raised on prisoner's aid]

OMFG...sounds like some deep shit off of Newsnight Review.

 

[Practising Troublemaker]

Re: hmmmm

Thanks for your intelligent comment.

This just proves my original thought. That you are one of the most inane, boring people to exist.

Lighten the f*** up and stop trying to be so moral and high and mighty!!

Love PTxx.

 

[goinghome]

From page 38: “I will add one more thing. Reading these accounts of tragic and lost lives, it strikes me that it is never the major philosophical or religious arguments that convince people not to kill themselves although in some cases, metaphysics does seem to have succeeded in prompting the opposite. What changes people’s minds are the little things: Goethe’s Easter bells, Chesterton’s “little cloud all pink and grey”, the glass of wine that Hesse’s suicidal Steppenwolf drinks, avoiding the razor back at home. Like Graham Greene’s experience of Russian Roulette, these things somehow trigger a sense of life’s “infinite possibilities,” the awareness of which makes suicide seem an absurd blunder Why these everyday items, which we normally take for granted, can at times release a mystical sense of the absolute value of life, remains a mystery…”

 

[mcrickson]

Thanks for your intelligent comment.

And thank you for yours

Jukebox Jury

Here it goes again.

 

[Practising Troublemaker]

Here it goes again.

Oi, you best share that popcorn with me!

Love PTxx.

 

[Jukebox Jury]

Re: hmmmm

if intelligence is now a criterion in which all posts will be judged (by you), i imagine you intend to become the consummate lurker?

Thanks for your intelligent comment

Jukebox Jury

 

[Uncleskinny]

This thread is becoming a self-referential worm-hole. Now I don't know what to believe.

 

[MILVA]

Finally I finished Len Brown’s ‘Meetings with Morrissey’, though the last chapter about the Oscar Wilde parallels, while fascinating and convincing, reminded me a little of the Diana Morrissey mystery.

that's a bit harsh. The Diana Morrissey phenomenon was (?is?) truly, horribly short-sighted. Len's book, even his provocative "wildely reading", isn't for a single nanosecond. But you're excused. I'm in an extraordinary mood too

The appendix listing a host of thespian characters who influenced lyrics contained a disproportionate number of those who were reckless, doomed or committed suicide.
Which accidentally seemed to segue nicely into the book I’m now reading, written by Gary Lachman, founder member of the band Blondie. It’s called ‘The Dedalus Book of Literary Suicides – Dead Letters’. Much research has been conducted and condensed in the effort and the approach is in er, dead earnest. Nevertheless, I’m finding some of the facts about the myriad writers included in it hilarious. A historian Jacques Barzun summarises nihilists: “The genuine kind believe in nothing and do nothing about it”. An obscure philosopher, Mainlander from Offenbach, developed a theory that God was so bored with eternity he committed suicide through making this world of time, space and matter and that the highest aim of all beings is really non-existence. In his 30’s Mainlander's opus ‘The Philosophy of Redemption’ was published with the help of his sister, and the day after he committed suicide by stepping off a stack of review copies of his own books…

Lachman is a grounded chap and chips away at his vast mass of raw material with a realistic sense of proportion, creating an exploration full of historical, cultural and closer insights.

Hmm - suicide is, I guess, of all times (though I'm able only to trace it back to the Egyptian societies) - and nothing's too special about it. Life and death, that's about it. No one controls the moment he/she is born, and various religions have tried to convince people they shouldn't control the moment they exit life.
What baffles us, generally, is the irreversibility of it all, esp. of death (though one could argue the same thing for birth, yet crucially not for "life") - and we're getting less and less used to that, bombarded as we are, rather constantly, that you can make your body/life into just about anything, or almost.

The more one focusses on the potential reversibility of human actions, the more the irreversible fact of life, i.e. "death", stands out as particularly troublesome. Making it, at the same time, also attractive (cf. the Japanese group suicides).

Let's face it: suicide will always exist, some people have perfectly good personal reasons to want to end their life - and I tend to respect them and their action; while for others it's a bold statement, or an act of despair. These two cases deserve attention, care and every possible form of kindness, rather than suicide itself.

I told ya I was in a great mood today ..

Happy continued reading

 

[goinghome]

Hmm - suicide is, I guess, of all times (though I'm able only to trace it back to the Egyptian societies) - and nothing's too special about it. Life and death, that's about it. No one controls the moment he/she is born, and various religions have tried to convince people they shouldn't control the moment they exit life.
What baffles us, generally, is the irreversibility of it all, esp. of death (though one could argue the same thing for birth, yet crucially not for "life") - and we're getting less and less used to that, bombarded as we are, rather constantly, that you can make your body/life into just about anything, or almost.

The more one focusses on the potential reversibility of human actions, the more the irreversible fact of life, i.e. "death", stands out as particularly troublesome. Making it, at the same time, also attractive (cf. the Japanese group suicides).

Let's face it: suicide will always exist, some people have perfectly good personal reasons to want to end their life - and I tend to respect them and their action; while for others it's a bold statement, or an act of despair. These two cases deserve attention, care and every possible form of kindness, rather than suicide itself.

I told ya I was in a great mood today ..

Happy continued reading

Hi Milva

I've just realised I'm here listening to Nick Drake's 'Tanworth in Arden 1967/68' which is nice and dreamy, but he was one who left this world early of his own volition.

A lot of the early Greek and Roman philosophers also seemed to take for granted deliberate dying. The wish is not really to end one's life, probably in most cases, but to end suffering, an understandable and 'karmically neutral' act. Buddhists say that what happens after is not that identity is preserved but depends on the conditions of the mind at death. They believe in 4 realities or 'bardos' of existence: living; sickness and dying; the conscious state that remains after death; and becoming/(re-) birth. In a smaller way, these processes are visible daily in our undertakings; starting, change, development, ending etc.

The Chinest Taoist Chuang Tzu, circa 300 B.C., said: "The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach. His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present".

Maybe Milva, you were Chuang Tzu in a past life, with your similar theory of the problem of irreversibility!

Skimming Lachman's book again, I found a record I liked, an excerpt from a letter written by Lord Byron to Thomas More in 1817 -
"I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law; and, even then, if I could have been certain to haunt her - but I won't dwell upon these trifling family matters..."

 

[goinghome]

To sum up, Lachman divides suicides into 5 main types: existential, romantic, surreal, political and manic-depressive. Many of those not in the political category had experiences of war and had their backs against the wall through circumstances near the end, which would try anyone. Of the arty categories - romantic, surreal - a history of neglect and/or abuse by carers was common, causing unresolved emotional distress. So I doubt the fact of being a writer itself makes people prone to suicide, except for how it might facilitate more cogitation of destinies?

In Q magazine 1995, Morrissey replied to the question, "What did Kurt Cobain's suicide mean to you?
- I felt sad and I felt envious. He had the courage to do it. I admire people who self-destruct and that's not a new comment for me. They are taking control. They're refusing to continue with unhappiness, which shows tremendous self-will. It must be very frightening to sit down and look at your watch and think, 'In 30 minutes I will not be here.' Thinking, 'I'm going to go on that strange journey.' Modern life is very pressurising. We're all on the verge of hysteria. There are people around who'll shoot your head off because you forgot to indicate."-

However I think that in 2004 Morrissey observed in another interview that suicide can be used as a device to ensure fame as well. I guess we can all change our views about it at different times. May life be kind to each and everyone!

 

[MILVA]

Hi Milva

I've just realised I'm here listening to Nick Drake's 'Tanworth in Arden 1967/68' which is nice and dreamy, but he was one who left this world early of his own volition.

have you read Patrick Humphries' and Trevor Dann's biographies? Seems the issue is still not settled...

The Chinest Taoist Chuang Tzu, circa 300 B.C., said: "The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach. His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present".

Maybe Milva, you were Chuang Tzu in a past life, with your similar theory of the problem of irreversibility!